Fic: Second Chances (Alt!Nine/Rose)
wiggiemomsi, your fic is here!
Title: Second Chances
Rating: Mature
Characters/Pairing: Alt!Nine/Rose, Pete, Jackie, Tony
Spoilers: AU after "Doomsday"
Warnings: Semi-graphic sex
Notes: For wiggiemomsi for her support of the Support Stacie Auction. Thanks to wendymr for the beta!
Summary: An older, wiser and sadder Rose meets the last person she ever expected to see in Pete's World, and they may just end up rescuing each other.
Ten minutes to midnight on New Year’s Eve, and Rose can just see freedom. She reflects, not for the first time, that these high-society parties looked a hell of a lot more interesting in the papers back when she read them with Shireen than they do from the inside. All the men in dinner suits are starting to look the same, she’s sweating inside her body-smoothing foundation garment, and if she hears one more fake laugh, she thinks she might just snap. And her feet hurt. She exchanges smiles and a bit of small talk with yet another person she thinks she’s met before and begins working her way toward the balcony for some badly-needed air.
Three years have passed since Bad Wolf Bay. At first, all her thoughts had been focused on finding any way to get back. Dr. Sato at Torchwood had gone so far as to design and create a prototype for what she called a “dimension cannon,” but for all her efforts and brilliance, it hadn’t worked. And Rose had come, slowly and inexorably, to the bitter conclusion that maybe it was impossible after all.
The realization had thrown her back into mourning for what she’d lost, but eventually, she’d accepted it. She’d then thrown herself into becoming a new Rose Tyler. She couldn’t be the Doctor’s Rose anymore; that girl was as lost as the Rose who worked at Henrik’s. Becoming a new woman meant throwing off all the vestiges of the old. Her hair is back to its natural color save for some professionally-done highlights, her wardrobe suits the professional she’s become, and she hasn’t so much as touched a chip in over two years. She works hard at Torchwood, accompanies her parents to high-society events such as this one, and spoils her little brother rotten.
Rose from the Powell Estates would never have recognized this new woman in a designer evening gown, a few thousand pounds’ worth of jewelry, and an elegant updo. New Rose doesn’t concern herself with whether this is a good thing or not.
One thing she’s never lost, though, is her nose for danger. That’s why she starts paying attention when a chill runs up her spine. Something is wrong.
***
He watches the party from a concealed alcove overlooking the ballroom. Though his dark clothing blends into the shadows, his real means of concealment is a perception filter; mere appearance won’t fool those he’s been playing cat-and-mouse with for the past few days.
The Doctor scans the party guests below using a pair of binoculars he picked up in the thirty-fourth century. They adjust with a thought, only slightly less efficient than the eye itself. For some reason, his pursuers narrowed in on this place after he eluded them, and he wants to know why. The temporally-sensitive Chronovores can sense the artron energy that fuels his regenerations, and they want it. A biodamper on his finger prevents them from sensing that even through the perception filter.
So why are they here? What have they found?
He zeroes in on one of them, disguised as a bland-looking man in a dinner suit. Remarkably effective camouflage, that; most of the men here look bland to his eyes. Maybe it’s just the dinner jackets. He dislikes them, at least in this incarnation. No particular reason, they just annoy him.
The Chronovore seems to be quite intent on one of the guests. The binoculars zero in on her as the Doctor tries to figure out what makes her so special.
She’s lovely. Not the most beautiful woman in the room, but he thinks her face has character. Her dress is simple, layers of soft-pink chiffon that fall gracefully around her body. It makes her look like a rose. He thinks it suits her. Somehow, she seems out of place in this room with these people.
And she knows something isn’t right. She’s looking around, her body tense, and when her eyes fall upon her pursuer, she obviously knows he doesn’t belong here, either.
“Clever girl,” murmurs the Doctor. He pulls out his sonic screwdriver and uses it to take a quick reading to see if she’s human or other.
His findings astonish him. She’s human, yes--but absolutely soaked in artron energy. As if, he thinks, she’s been gallivanting about time and space via the Vortex.
He has another puzzle to solve. It quite pleases him.
The girl has moved away from her pursuer to a tall, ginger man. He touches her arm, an affectionate, protective gesture, as she leans up and speaks to him. Given the ginger man’s age and the complementary glints of red-gold in the girl’s hair, the Doctor thinks they might be father and daughter.
Whatever she says to him causes him, too, to tense and look around. A few more words, and he moves away from the throng with the girl, pulling an earpiece from his pocket.
Very interesting, indeed. And things look to get even more interesting, given that the Chronovores appear to have realized they’ve been spotted.
The Doctor leaves his alcove and heads for the grand staircase leading to the ballroom. A society do like this might be his personal idea of hell, but there are innocent men and women down there who are about to get caught in the middle of something ugly. He can’t let that happen.
***
Whatever they are, they’re getting closer. They look basically human, but there’s something off about each of them. They don’t look like flesh and bone; their faces are too shiny, too sculpted. They remind her of nothing so much as the Auton that took the place of Mickey once when she was young and didn’t consider aliens, time travel and things that look human, but aren’t, anything but science fiction. Fortunately, Pete’s seen them as well, which means Torchwood is on it.
Except that Rose doesn’t think they have the time to wait for a team to get here. Why they’ve zeroed in on her, she doesn’t know; but it seems unlikely they’re here for an autograph or interview with the Vitex Heiress.
And just because things can always get worse, Jackie’s suddenly at her shoulder. “Rose, what’s goin’ on? Your dad just--”
Rose cuts her off, never taking her eyes off the closest alien. “Mum, stick by Dad. Something’s happening. Dunno what, but I have a feeling Torchwood’s gonna be involved.”
Fortunately, Jackie’s been neck-deep in Torchwood business ever since they arrived in this universe. She knows when not to ask questions. Unfortunately, she’s about as likely as ever to allow her daughter to be in danger.
“All right, Rose, but you’re comin’ with me. Don’t care how much training they give you at Torchwood, I’m not leaving you alone.” She tugs on Rose’s arm.
Rose is wavering between giving in and arguing when the nearest alien slides something out of its jacket and slowly raises it. It’s shiny, blinking and pointed straight at her.
And then, the last voice she ever expected to hear again shouts, “Oi!”
***
Subtlety is not, he supposes, his strong suit this regeneration. All eyes are now on him--human, alien, and those of the girl he’s been watching. Hers are wide, incredulous. Well, he does have that effect.
He tosses the biodamper up in the air and catches it again. “Lookin’ for me?”
Human voices rise in confused babble. And then, inevitably, one female voice breaks free of the rest, crying out, “Oh, my God, he has a gun!”
The Chronovore with the stunner belatedly realizes the society matron with the bleached hair is talking about him as the panic begins in earnest. Party guests scatter for the exits, practically trampling each other in their haste to get away from danger.
Except the girl. She shoves the bleached-hair matron towards an exit, and then she herself is heading for him.
So are his pursuers, after a moment or two of confusion over just whom they ought to be chasing. Luckily, he has it under control.
He hopes.
He aims his sonic screwdriver at the Chronovore with the stunner and short-circuits its disguise mechanism. Since they’re all linked--it’s easier to camouflage them all using a single uplink to their ship--breaking the circuit strips them all of their disguises. As an added bonus, it gives them all a good jolt. It won’t stop them, but it stuns them long enough for the Doctor to make his next move.
The girl in the rose dress has reached the stairs, shucking her shoes as she goes. He, in turn, reaches for her, grabbing her hand and saying, “Run!”
***
He’s here.
Her mind is racing at a million miles per hour, trying to come up with some explanation as to why the Doctor, why this Doctor, is here, but it keeps getting stuck on the fact that he’s real, he’s holding her hand, and he just said, “Run!”
She runs with him, having left her shoes on the staircase like Cinderella. The aliens might still be pursuing them, but somehow, that’s faded into a sort of background nuisance.
He pulls her into a room suddenly, motioning for her to be quiet. The sound of Mickey’s voice barking orders and the whine of energy guns reach her ears; Torchwood has arrived.
And then it all falls silent. The Doctor yanks a cobbled-together device out of his pocket and checks it.
“They’ve made a jump,” he mutters. “Army boys must’ve scared them away. Fantastic.”
At that word, she finally finds her voice. “Doctor.”
His attention immediately transfers itself to her. “Do we know each other?” he asks.
“I . . .” Her brain appears to have given up on trying to make sense of this. “I know you. Knew you. Will know you, maybe. I-I’m not sure.”
He scans her with the sonic screwdriver. “Well, I don’t know you, so one of us must be in the wrong when. Have you been traveling in time recently?”
“No, not since . . .” She trails off. “Doctor, how are you even here? I thought other universes were closed off now.”
He gives her a look that says he finds her more than a little strange. “They are. Good job I’m in the one I’ve always been in, then.”
She’s getting more confused by the moment and is afraid she might burst into tears or something equally embarrassing. “I don’t understand.”
Something the sonic is telling him causes him to suddenly freeze. “Neither do I, but I will. You’re coming with me.”
With that, he grabs her hand and pulls her toward a red telephone box sitting incongruously in the corner of the room. When it opens up to be bigger on the inside, she realizes the devastating truth: this is not her Doctor.
***
Her face is a fascinating study in emotion as she looks around his TARDIS. Wonder, yes, but also disappointment. He wonders where that comes from.
“I-I don’t think . . .” She trails off and swallows hard. “How long has your TARDIS been a phone box?”
That’s not a question he was expecting. “A long time. Since my first incarnation, at least.”
Her eyes grow suspiciously bright, and he hopes he won’t have to deal with an emotional breakdown. “I don’t think you’re my Doctor,” she says quietly.
“There’s only the one of me, I assure you.” He’s both deeply puzzled and intrigued. And a little annoyed.
“I don’t think that’s exactly true,” she says. “I traveled with another you--in another dimension.”
He looks at her hard for a minute or so before waving a hand at the captain’s seat. “Sit down.” She complies, her dress fluttering gently around her. “Let’s start from the beginning: I’m the Doctor. What’s your name?”
“Rose,” she says. “Rose Tyler.”
“Rose,” he repeats, and smiles. “Nice to meet you, Rose. Now, tell me how you first met this Doctor of yours.”
Over the next hour, under his questioning, she tells him how she met her Doctor, some of their adventures, how he regenerated and apparently became a weasel in pinstripes, and how they were separated. She keeps herself admirably under control, shedding a tear or two only at the last.
What she tells him is backed up by the readings he’s taken--that she has traveled in space and time, and she’s been through the Void. Nonetheless, it’s so completely contrary to what he’s always believed that he can’t quite convince himself it’s true.
Only one option, then.
“Rose Tyler,” he says, “I need to have a look inside that head of yours.”
***
Whatever she was expecting, that was not it. She lifts startled eyes to his and finds that he seems to be perfectly serious.
“O-okay,” she manages. Even if he’s not her Doctor, he’s still the Doctor, and she trusts him instinctively.
He touches cool, gentle fingers to her temples, and suddenly, she’s within her own head, letting him rifle through her memories. His observation is carefully clinical, detached, but she can’t stop her feelings for her Doctor from rising up within her. She can’t stop him from knowing what those feelings were/are.
And then she becomes aware of other feelings: his. How long it’s been since he touched anyone, physically or mentally. How very lonely he is and has been since the war. How much pain he’s been in. Instinctively, she reaches out to comfort him.
His response shocks both of them. Her touch is like rainwater, and his soul is parched ground. He soaks her in, seeking to bind her to him, desperate for contact, for union.
She slams back into her body as he suddenly releases her, stepping back, eyes wide with surprise, dismay and longing. She takes a half-step toward him but quickly stops herself; whatever happened caught him off-guard, and the surest way to make him bolt now is to crowd him.
Even if all she wants right now is to keep touching him.
It takes him a few moments to recover enough to speak. “I . . . suppose it’s all true, then,” he says, his voice sounding oddly strained. “Interesting. Perhaps Gallifrey’s own timeline shattered during the war. That would explain the existence of both of us.” The retreat into matters of time and space appears to ease his discomfort. She decides to go with it.
“What were those things?” she asks, a swift jerk of her head toward the doors indicating what went on outside them.
“Chronovores. They feed on artron energy, which makes the two of us a banquet.” He flips a few switches, and then he turns his oh-so-familiar grin on her. “Fancy helping me catch them?”
***
It’s mad to invite her along after what happened. The urge to flee her presence and what she’s sparked in him is overpowering--but the urge to keep her close is even stronger. It’s all he can do to keep himself from grabbing hold of her and sinking into the warmth and compassion she offers. Given her feelings for her other Doctor, and the obvious regard the other Doctor had for her, he thinks she’d be completely amenable to . . . sinking.
But that’s madness. She’ll be helpful to him in the chase for the Chronovores. Give him the edge he needs to end this game he’s been playing with them. That’s the only reason he wants her along. After this, he’ll send her back to her nice, high-society life.
That’s all.
Her smile lights up the control room. She’s like a sun, he thinks, all warmth and light.
“I’d love to help you catch them,” she says. She glances down at her dress. “Don’t suppose you have a wardrobe? I’d like to change into something a little more practical.”
He does indeed, and she hurries away after he gives her directions. A few minutes later, she reappears in blue jeans, a t-shirt and a red hoodie, sans jewelry. Though her hair and makeup still recall the gala she was attending, she looks more natural, as if she’s shed a disguise. It makes her even more disturbingly appealing.
He does his best to ignore her appeal as he chases down the subtle footprints of the Chronovores. Easier said than done, especially when she comes to stand next to him. She’s warm and smells good, like clean clothes, female sweat and just a hint of lavender. Strange, having someone else on the TARDIS. Good, though. Makes it feel a little more like a home . . .
Chronovores. Right. Then she’ll want to go back home, no doubt. He’s better off alone, anyway.
So why does it feel like it would be better with two?
***
Hunting down the Chronovores feels good. Like old times with her Doctors. The TARDIS lurches merrily toward their destination, where there’s a lot of running, even more fast-talking from the Doctor, a near-brush with disaster, a narrow escape from the local law enforcement, and, at last, triumph. The Doctor tricks the Chronovores into a time loop that should keep them busy for the better part of, oh, one thousand linear years.
When they finally get back to the TARDIS, Rose is exhausted. The Doctor gives her a funny look, like he can’t decide on what he wants to say, and finally suggests that perhaps she’d like to get some sleep in one of the bedrooms.
“That’d be great, yeah,” she says, relieved that he’s not taking her home.
Home. What’s home?
She still hasn’t settled that question in her mind when, face scrubbed and hair down, she tumbles into bed in a plain, utilitarian room.
***
It never ceases to amaze the Doctor how long humans can sleep. It’s going on nine hours after Rose went to bed, and she’s still not up. He doesn’t have all day--okay, technically, he does, but he’d prefer to be off and moving again, and it’s time to take her home. Past time, really; he doesn’t know why he invited her to sleep on the TARDIS.
Decided, he heads to the room she’s sleeping in, opens the door, pokes his head in, and gets quite a shock.
Rose is, indeed, still sleeping peacefully, but the room he knew to be plain and undecorated is now green. Soft, living green and white. The walls are green with a floral detail midway up. The linens are green and white with a subtle leaf pattern. Even the bed frame itself, exquisitely wrought like vines, is green.
In the middle of the bed, curled up in a little ball of light brown hair and pink pajamas, is Rose. She looks like she belongs in this room, as if it were tailored specifically for her. Which isn’t too far off the truth.
Annoyed, he sends a query off to the TARDIS as to why she did this when she knows Rose won’t be staying. In return, he gets a sharp rebuke. Better with her here, it seems to say. You shouldn’t be alone any longer.
Much as he wants to fight it, he can’t deny that her presence was not only beneficial in the hunt for the Chronovores, but pleasant as well. He likes having other beings around, and Rose slipped right in and fit perfectly. Likely a holdover from having traveled on another TARDIS; she came pre-broken-in.
That thought brings up another question: what if she doesn’t want to stay because he reminds her too much of the Doctor she lost? Or what if she does want to stay, but for the wrong reasons?
One way to find out, he feels the TARDIS prompting him. As usual, she’s right. He takes a deep breath.
“Rose.”
***
Rose wakes out of the deepest, most satisfying slumber she’s had in recent memory. She gets the impression someone called her name, but she’s so warm and relaxed that she doesn’t quite care. Taking her time, she opens her eyes.
Green, she thinks muzzily. The room’s gone green during the “night.” Her favorite shade of green, too, though she didn’t know it until this very moment. Well, it’s the TARDIS; of course she’d know . . .
The TARDIS. Memories rush back of the previous day, and she opens her eyes fully to find the Doctor--this Doctor, the Doctor who belongs in her new universe--watching her from the doorway.
“Morning,” she murmurs.
He smiles, the expression softening the severe lines of his face. “Good morning. You slept long enough.”
She stretches, feeling a few oddly-pleasant sore muscles from the chase with the Chronovores. “That I did. Worn out, I s’pose.” She yawns hugely and sits up. “There tea anywhere?”
“Kitchen,” says the Doctor with a jerk of his head. “Was just about to get some myself.”
Deciding that’s incentive enough to leave her extremely-comfortable bed, Rose disentangles herself from her blankets and hops down. On the floor is a pair of slippers to match the pajamas she chose from the wardrobe. She sticks her feet into them and pats the nearest wall. “Thanks, girl.” There’s a gentle flicker of acknowledgement inside her head, something she could never describe, but is very real nonetheless.
When her eyes find the Doctor again, his gaze is so penetrating she can almost feel it physically. She literally cannot move under it. Within a moment, though, she finds herself released from the spell, and the Doctor holds out a hand. “Tea?”
Almost shyly, she takes the offered hand. “Tea.”
***
He places a scone and some clotted cream and strawberry jam on the table in front of her as she pours tea for both of them. Both of them take their time getting comfortable before he finally speaks.
“You were helpful yesterday,” he says, hoping it’s a good opening line.
She smiles over her teacup. “Thanks. It was fun.”
“So, erm . . .” He trails off, feeling stupid. How does one ask such a thing? “It’s been a long time since someone traveled with me. I don’t suppose . . . unless you want to go home, of course. But you’d be welcome to stay.”
It’s out. He tries not to look like he desperately wants her to say “yes.” She sets down her cup and looks at him for a long moment.
“You’re not my Doctor,” she says thoughtfully. “But I was with him when he regenerated. Same man, but different. I had to get to know him all over again. Suppose it’ll be the same with you. The same, but not.”
He likes her for that. He likes it less when she insists on going home to fetch a few things and tell her family where she’ll be. Worse, she wants him to meet her parents and brother. He feels like--like a boyfriend. At his age! It’s undignified.
But meet them he does. Jackie looks disapproving but resigned, with an incongruous shade of relief thrown in for good measure. Pete looks guarded. Tony thinks the Doctor makes a fun new toy. Oddly, he doesn’t mind that so much. He lets the toddler yank him around by one hand, babbling about his toys in a mixture of English and complete gibberish even the TARDIS can’t translate. The Doctor senses that this little boy’s life will stray far into the realm of the improbable, and it pleases him.
Finally, Rose is ready to go. She gives kisses and hugs all around, and then she and the Doctor board the TARDIS.
“So,” he says, leaning on the console. “Where to, Rose Tyler?”
The smile she gives him leaves him wondering how he ever thought she wasn’t the most beautiful woman in the room.
***
In some ways, it’s just like old times.
They travel first to a planet called Pokkik, where there’s supposed to be a festival that involves the parade to end all parades. “Makes Mardi Gras look like a bank queue,” as the Doctor puts it.
Of course, then there’s political intrigue, which is, naturally, caused by alien infiltration. Rose and the Doctor end up weaving through floats that could fit a small town as they run from the delicious chaos they’ve caused, and the government is back in the right hands by morning. When they get back to the TARDIS, laughing and covered in glitter, it does seem so much like the adventures Rose shared with her Doctors that it gives her a pang in the chest.
But this isn’t her Doctor. There are subtle differences in his behavior that lead Rose to believe he’d been on his own for far longer before meeting her. Or perhaps that’s just what she’s reading into it, given what she sensed from his mind. Still, sometimes, when she catches him looking at her, there’s a depth of need in his eyes that takes her breath away.
She can’t deny that she needs him, too. For all her determination to live her life and be a new person in her new world, she hasn’t felt this alive since she fell. If he holds her hand tighter and hugs her harder than her first Doctor did, she can’t say she minds. Not at all.
On a distant planet, they sit against an enormous tree at the edge of a lush meadow, watching the sunset and waiting for what the Doctor has promised will be a show to remember. His arm is wrapped casually around her, and she leans against him.
“So, what’s going to happen?” she asks.
“That would be telling,” he says. “Humans. Always so impatient.”
She gives a little snort. “Says the Time Lord who can’t sit still long enough to drink a cup of tea and pouts at me when I need to sleep.”
“That’s not impatience. I simply have better things to do, and furthermore, I do not pout.”
“You pout.”
“Do not.”
“Fine, you sulk.”
“Hush. It’s starting.”
The last of the sunset is fading from the sky when Rose sees the first lights over the meadow. They flicker and flutter and seem to change color as they move. She’s about to ask what they are when several more emerge from the woods behind her.
“Butterflies?” she whispers, afraid to disturb the moment.
“Yes,” says the Doctor, his voice lowered as well. “Bioluminescent nocturnal butterflies coming to feed on the night-blooming poppies, and perhaps find a mate.”
They’re wondrous. The patterns on their wings glow in varied colors, and each of them seems to have a bright light on its body as well, like a firefly. Some are warm gold, others cool silver. As more and more join the gathering, the meadow turns into a carpet of light and color.
“It’s so gorgeous.” The word seems inadequate, but then, Rose can’t think of a word that would suit the spectacle. “Thank you for showing me this, Doctor.”
She looks at him to find his expression pensive, illuminated by the flickering glow of the butterflies and the light of the newly-risen moon. The light plays over his strong features--the high cheekbones, the aquiline nose, the deep eyes, the firm mouth--and Rose is reminded yet again of how beautiful she finds him, especially in these quieter moments.
“They’ll die soon,” he says. “After they come out of their cocoons, they have only days to find a mate, pass on their genetic legacy, and die. So brief, their beauty.”
She senses he’s speaking of more than the butterflies, and she answers carefully. “Doctor, I won’t promise you forever because I don’t have a forever to give.” He turns his head to meet her eyes, and she goes on. “All I can promise you in my now. It’s yours as long as it’s mine to give.”
He says nothing, but one hand lifts to her face, and his fingers gently trace it from brow to chin. Then they sit back again and watch the butterflies until dawn.
***
That night signals the beginning of a change in their relationship. He finds himself relaxing more fully around her, letting his guard down. In return, she’s easier around him. They talk about everything--her life with her other Doctor, his old companions, Gallifrey, the Army of Ghosts.
He avoids sleep as much as possible, but shortly after they view the butterflies, he finds he can’t put it off any longer. He goes to bed. The nightmares come. As always.
This time, though, a soft voice calls him out of the fire and the screams. When he finally fights his way to consciousness, there’s a warm, caring presence nearby, and he instinctively reaches for it. Two human arms surround him, and his face is pressed against something soft and sweet-smelling. A gentle voice murmurs reassurance in his ear.
Rose. She’s come to him, drawn either by his cries of distress or the TARDIS, and she’s holding him almost like a child. He realizes his fingers are digging into her side, probably bruising her. He forces them to relax and, much as he wants to stay just where he is, pushes back and away from her. She releases him, concern written across her features.
“Nightmare?” she guesses.
He nods, not trusting his voice. There’s a glass of water on the bedside table. The TARDIS must have provided that, as he doesn’t recall having put it there, and he drinks it down greedily.
“Are you all right?” Rose asks.
“Fine,” he says. In truth, he’s a little embarrassed at how he clung to her. “How did you know?”
“TARDIS told me. It happened with my first Doctor, too.” She keeps her voice light, casual, and he’s grateful. “God, your room’s freezing!”
At that, he realizes she’s only wearing a satin chemise. Her skin glows in the dim light, and he can see evidence of her body’s response to the chill through the sleek fabric--evidence he tries to ignore. His success at ignoring it is decidedly mixed.
As he tries to come up with a solution to her discomfort that won’t involve sending her away--he decidedly does not want to be alone right now, though he’d never admit it--Rose comes up with her own solution.
She slides into bed beside him.
“Much better.” She tucks the blankets around her. “Wanna talk about your nightmare?”
“No,” he says, adding after a moment, “Time War.”
“Ah.” That seems to satisfy her. She reaches out, finds one of his hands and holds it between hers. “Wanna talk about something else, or do you just want to go back to sleep?”
“I doubt I’ll sleep anymore. I got almost an hour; that will do me for another week.”
Her eyes are large, dark and entirely unconvinced as she faces him across the pillows. One of her hands detaches from his and touches his face, gently smoothing the lines there. “Don’t run yourself down, Doctor; you won’t do anyone any good that way.”
He can’t argue that with her, so he changes the subject. “Tell me about your family.”
She does, relating the long, meandering road that brought them all together. “The happiest I’ve been here in this world is with Tony. Mum wants to make everything better for me. Dad knows she can’t. Mickey understands better than either of them, but he--he still has feelings for me. I feel cruel when I lean on him and then can’t return his feelings. Tony doesn’t expect anything of me I can’t give.”
“He’ll live a life that’s far from the norm,” says the Doctor.
Rose’s eyes twinkle. “He never had a chance at a normal life. I just hope he’ll be happy.”
The look in her eyes says it all. “Like you haven’t been?”
“I wasn’t, no.” She yawns a little. “Not back on Earth. The pain faded, but I wasn’t happy.” Her smile is soft and a little dopey; she’s getting sleepier. “Am now, though.”
He smoothes her soft hair back from her face. “Get some sleep. We’ve another big day tomorrow.”
She closes her eyes, but murmurs, “What’ll we be doing?”
“I have no idea. Isn’t that fantastic?”
Her soft laugh is the last sound she makes before falling asleep.
He stays awake, watching her. A little frown forms between her eyes, as if she’s concentrating very hard on something in her sleep. The heat from her body permeates his bed, relaxing and soothing him until the remaining darkness from his nightmare is banished.
His sense of time kicks in, informing him of a path on the Probability Tree he hasn’t considered before, one that startles him. He’s not sure what to make of it, so he tucks it away and gets out of bed. Time to concentrate on other things. He’ll consider that path later. It’s a decision he needs to weigh carefully.
And then, a few weeks later, the matter is taken out of his hands. He hesitates just a moment too long as he and Rose are freeing prisoners at an illegal slave-mining operation, and as a result, he has to move a rather large boulder using nothing but physical force. By the time they get back to the TARDIS, his back is one solid mass of aching muscles, and the whole chain of events has one inexorable conclusion.
***
“Seriously, would you like a backrub?”
It’s the third time she’s asked some variation on the question. His insistence that his superior biology will heal itself without such primitive intervention gets less convincing every time he moves--and winces in pain.
He rolls his eyes. “Humans. Can’t--unf--conceive of anatomy that has no need of therapeutic--aah!” His attempt at hefting a volume of fifth-dimensional physics back onto the library shelf is swiftly and painfully aborted, and he sets it on a table as he plops down heavily onto the couch.
“Really convincing me of your biological superiority, you are.” She stands, setting aside the book she’s been perusing. “Back in a mo’.”
When she returns to the library, she’s bearing a bottle of lavender-scented bath oil. He eyes her suspiciously as she sits next to him on the couch.
“Strip off,” she commands, plucking at his jumper. His eyes narrow. Hers roll. “I promise I won’t hurt you or molest you. Now, strip off.”
She half-expects a sarcastic retort. What she doesn’t expect is the sudden uncertainty he radiates. He’s nervous, and she doesn’t know why. But he does finally remove his jumper, turning his back to her.
And suddenly, she’s the hesitant one. The naked, lean-muscled back in front of her is attached to the man she feels closest to in the world. In the months she’s spent on the TARDIS, she’s come to know him well enough to know how he’s like and unlike her Doctor, and she’s found that she likes this version of him just as much. They haven’t had the time she had with her old Doctor, but that’s all that’s lacking.
Perhaps because she’s more mature than she was the first time she met the Doctor, perhaps because of how quickly she settled into life on this TARDIS, he treats her as more of an equal than her Doctor did at this stage. And she knows herself and her own desires better than she did at nineteen.
What she desires is him.
“I could be mistaken, but this doesn’t feel like a backrub.” The Doctor’s sardonic tone interrupts her thoughts and brings her back to the present.
Well, she did start this. Pushing her hesitancy aside, she rubs a bit of the oil between her hands and then, before she can think better of it, begins to massage the tight muscles in his back. His skin is smooth and cool under her touch.
Calling to mind a few techniques Jack taught her back on the other TARDIS, she follows the hard lines of knotted muscles with long strokes, using the heels and the sides of her hands. She tries to keep her mind on the job at hand--easing the Doctor’s discomfort--but finds herself fighting her libido, which has reawakened with a vengeance. She ruthlessly suppressed it for years, but in his presence, it’s been steadily taking back ground.
When he gives a soft moan, it’s all she can do not to give in to her fantasies, start kissing at the back of his neck and follow the line of his vertebrae down, down, down while her hands wander around to his front . . .
What have I got myself into? she wonders.
Another soft moan for him that goes straight to her sex, and she thinks the need for him might just kill her.
***
Her soft, heated little hands are doing a remarkable job of relaxing the muscles in his back. They’re doing an even better job at tightening his trousers. Why did he agree to this?
Oh, that’s right--because he’s turning into a horny old bugger.
He moans again without meaning to. This time, her hands pause for a moment, and he hears the sharp intake of her breath. He worries he’s given himself away, and that she realizes just how aroused he’s getting and how awkward things will be now . . .
And then he realizes there’s been another scent growing, masked until now by the lavender oil. She, it appears, is aroused by him.
To hell with it, or wherever lost souls go these days.
In one swift movement, he’s turned around, captured one of her hands and used his other hand to trap her head as he captures her mouth with his. She squeaks in surprise but makes no attempt to escape. Indeed, after a moment, she opens her mouth under his and wraps one hand around the back of his neck.
She tastes sweet and warm as his tongue slides against hers, and she kisses the way she does everything--with all her heart. He hears himself moaning again, this time in harmony with her.
Finally, Rose pulls back to draw in a deep breath. Her eyes are wide and dark, her cheeks flushed, and she is beautiful beyond the telling of it.
Then she dives right back in, crawling into his lap to straddle his pelvis and grind hard against him, making him gasp and groan. He slides his hands under her top, pushing it up, and she lets go of him just long enough for him to remove it from her entirely. Her bra follows, and he dives down to take one nipple in his mouth. She’s making sweet little needful noises, and they’re going straight to his head and his groin.
Somehow, they manage to wrestle each other out of the rest of their clothing, and then he’s bearing her back, back to lie on the couch as he buries himself within her. Their eyes lock.
“Rose.” Her name is a plea and a prayer. Somehow, she understands what even he cannot vocalize, and she draws him down into a tender kiss. Then she thrusts her pelvis up against his, and all coherent thought is lost.
Still, some distant part of him wants to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. He, the last Lord of Time, is coupling with a human woman on a couch in his own TARDIS’s library. Why is this act so important? This strange, undignified, base, animal act that is suddenly the center of his whole existence.
But she’s so warm, and he’s been so cold for so long. Her touch eases his pain and tells him, in the most basic way possible, that he is not alone.
And when he tastes salt on her cheeks, he understands that it goes both ways, and a woman lost in the wrong universe has found consolation with him.
When at long last they’re both limp and sated, he carefully moves so that he’s spooned up behind her on the couch and draws an afghan over them. She takes his hand in hers and kisses it softly, then moves it to one soft, warm breast. He presses one last, gentle kiss to her lips, and then they sleep.
***
Rose wakes from a pleasant dream to an even more pleasant reality. The Doctor hasn’t moved at all since she fell asleep, right down to the hand cupping her left breast. From his deep, steady breaths, she concludes he’s still sleeping.
She’ll let him. She has no idea how he’ll react to what they did when he awakes, so she decides to savor being held by him while she can.
Time ticks slowly by. She thinks she was asleep at least an hour. Odd that he’d sleep so long, but then, she knows he hasn’t been sleeping much since she joined him on his ship, and she guesses he slept even less before. If this is the effect their lovemaking had on him, she’s glad to have given him this respite.
At long last, he gives a soft snort and twitches, and she feels him move his head. She stays motionless outwardly, but inwardly, she braces herself. If he’s decided this was all a mistake, she can take that--as long as she keeps his friendship.
“Are you awake?” he murmurs.
Having no better plan in mind, she answers, “Yeah.”
He makes no move to get up. He doesn’t even remove his hand from her breast.
“How’s your back?” she blurts when the silence stretches too long.
He chuckles, sending puffs of air through her hair. “I don’t think I have a tense muscle in my body right now.”
That makes her laugh as well. “Mine, either.”
She feels his chuckle at that more than she hears it. There’s a soft ghosting of breath at the join of her neck and shoulder, and she realizes he’s breathing in her scent. It’s enough to make her nipple pebble against the palm of his hand.
He stills, then sighs out a gentle breath as he rests his cheek against her hair. “Rose Tyler, since you’ve come into my life, I’ve found myself doing some strange things. Sex may just be the strangest of them all.”
She thinks about that a moment. “It is kind of bizarre, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he agrees. “Fantastic, though.” There’s a beat, and then a hint of tension in his voice as he says, “You . . . did think it was fantastic, didn’t you?”
His uncertainty is enough to make her giggle before she assures him, “Yes, it was fantastic. Wouldn’t mind doing it again.” It’s suddenly her turn to be uncertain. “Um, if you want, of course.”
“At the moment, I’m feeling very agreeable to whatever you want,” he says, sounding completely relaxed--and not a little smug.
She grins. “Good. D’you know what I want right now? What I really, really want?”
“If you break into a Spice Girls song, you’re off at the next planet.”
“God, no.” She shudders theatrically. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”
He gives her breast a little squeeze, sending a charge through her body. “As long as it’s not that, what is it you really, really want, Rose Tyler?”
She turns her head so she can see his face and says, “Chips.”
***
They eat chips while sitting on a pier in 1940s Bristol, watching the boats come in. Rose says they might be the best chips she’s ever eaten. The Doctor can’t disagree.
They don’t discuss what they are to each other, or what they’re becoming. There’s no easy word for it in English or Gallifreyan. Sometimes, they’ll simply enjoy the sights of other times or distant worlds. Other times, they’ll ride the razor’s edge of life and death as they save the universe, a world, or a single stranger. In the quiet moments in between, they’ll be lovers for comfort, for release of tension, for fun, for companionship.
He’ll never ask her if she’d go back to her old Doctor, given the chance. She’ll put the question from her mind entirely. Somehow, they’ll find happiness together.
Chips eaten, they rise to leave the pier. At that moment, a burning something streaks across the sky, moving too slowly to be a meteorite but not looking like anything from this planet in this time period. It lands with a boom somewhere beyond the city, and a lurid red light obscures the sunset.
They trade a grin. It looks like a job for them.
Title: Second Chances
Rating: Mature
Characters/Pairing: Alt!Nine/Rose, Pete, Jackie, Tony
Spoilers: AU after "Doomsday"
Warnings: Semi-graphic sex
Notes: For wiggiemomsi for her support of the Support Stacie Auction. Thanks to wendymr for the beta!
Summary: An older, wiser and sadder Rose meets the last person she ever expected to see in Pete's World, and they may just end up rescuing each other.
Ten minutes to midnight on New Year’s Eve, and Rose can just see freedom. She reflects, not for the first time, that these high-society parties looked a hell of a lot more interesting in the papers back when she read them with Shireen than they do from the inside. All the men in dinner suits are starting to look the same, she’s sweating inside her body-smoothing foundation garment, and if she hears one more fake laugh, she thinks she might just snap. And her feet hurt. She exchanges smiles and a bit of small talk with yet another person she thinks she’s met before and begins working her way toward the balcony for some badly-needed air.
Three years have passed since Bad Wolf Bay. At first, all her thoughts had been focused on finding any way to get back. Dr. Sato at Torchwood had gone so far as to design and create a prototype for what she called a “dimension cannon,” but for all her efforts and brilliance, it hadn’t worked. And Rose had come, slowly and inexorably, to the bitter conclusion that maybe it was impossible after all.
The realization had thrown her back into mourning for what she’d lost, but eventually, she’d accepted it. She’d then thrown herself into becoming a new Rose Tyler. She couldn’t be the Doctor’s Rose anymore; that girl was as lost as the Rose who worked at Henrik’s. Becoming a new woman meant throwing off all the vestiges of the old. Her hair is back to its natural color save for some professionally-done highlights, her wardrobe suits the professional she’s become, and she hasn’t so much as touched a chip in over two years. She works hard at Torchwood, accompanies her parents to high-society events such as this one, and spoils her little brother rotten.
Rose from the Powell Estates would never have recognized this new woman in a designer evening gown, a few thousand pounds’ worth of jewelry, and an elegant updo. New Rose doesn’t concern herself with whether this is a good thing or not.
One thing she’s never lost, though, is her nose for danger. That’s why she starts paying attention when a chill runs up her spine. Something is wrong.
***
He watches the party from a concealed alcove overlooking the ballroom. Though his dark clothing blends into the shadows, his real means of concealment is a perception filter; mere appearance won’t fool those he’s been playing cat-and-mouse with for the past few days.
The Doctor scans the party guests below using a pair of binoculars he picked up in the thirty-fourth century. They adjust with a thought, only slightly less efficient than the eye itself. For some reason, his pursuers narrowed in on this place after he eluded them, and he wants to know why. The temporally-sensitive Chronovores can sense the artron energy that fuels his regenerations, and they want it. A biodamper on his finger prevents them from sensing that even through the perception filter.
So why are they here? What have they found?
He zeroes in on one of them, disguised as a bland-looking man in a dinner suit. Remarkably effective camouflage, that; most of the men here look bland to his eyes. Maybe it’s just the dinner jackets. He dislikes them, at least in this incarnation. No particular reason, they just annoy him.
The Chronovore seems to be quite intent on one of the guests. The binoculars zero in on her as the Doctor tries to figure out what makes her so special.
She’s lovely. Not the most beautiful woman in the room, but he thinks her face has character. Her dress is simple, layers of soft-pink chiffon that fall gracefully around her body. It makes her look like a rose. He thinks it suits her. Somehow, she seems out of place in this room with these people.
And she knows something isn’t right. She’s looking around, her body tense, and when her eyes fall upon her pursuer, she obviously knows he doesn’t belong here, either.
“Clever girl,” murmurs the Doctor. He pulls out his sonic screwdriver and uses it to take a quick reading to see if she’s human or other.
His findings astonish him. She’s human, yes--but absolutely soaked in artron energy. As if, he thinks, she’s been gallivanting about time and space via the Vortex.
He has another puzzle to solve. It quite pleases him.
The girl has moved away from her pursuer to a tall, ginger man. He touches her arm, an affectionate, protective gesture, as she leans up and speaks to him. Given the ginger man’s age and the complementary glints of red-gold in the girl’s hair, the Doctor thinks they might be father and daughter.
Whatever she says to him causes him, too, to tense and look around. A few more words, and he moves away from the throng with the girl, pulling an earpiece from his pocket.
Very interesting, indeed. And things look to get even more interesting, given that the Chronovores appear to have realized they’ve been spotted.
The Doctor leaves his alcove and heads for the grand staircase leading to the ballroom. A society do like this might be his personal idea of hell, but there are innocent men and women down there who are about to get caught in the middle of something ugly. He can’t let that happen.
***
Whatever they are, they’re getting closer. They look basically human, but there’s something off about each of them. They don’t look like flesh and bone; their faces are too shiny, too sculpted. They remind her of nothing so much as the Auton that took the place of Mickey once when she was young and didn’t consider aliens, time travel and things that look human, but aren’t, anything but science fiction. Fortunately, Pete’s seen them as well, which means Torchwood is on it.
Except that Rose doesn’t think they have the time to wait for a team to get here. Why they’ve zeroed in on her, she doesn’t know; but it seems unlikely they’re here for an autograph or interview with the Vitex Heiress.
And just because things can always get worse, Jackie’s suddenly at her shoulder. “Rose, what’s goin’ on? Your dad just--”
Rose cuts her off, never taking her eyes off the closest alien. “Mum, stick by Dad. Something’s happening. Dunno what, but I have a feeling Torchwood’s gonna be involved.”
Fortunately, Jackie’s been neck-deep in Torchwood business ever since they arrived in this universe. She knows when not to ask questions. Unfortunately, she’s about as likely as ever to allow her daughter to be in danger.
“All right, Rose, but you’re comin’ with me. Don’t care how much training they give you at Torchwood, I’m not leaving you alone.” She tugs on Rose’s arm.
Rose is wavering between giving in and arguing when the nearest alien slides something out of its jacket and slowly raises it. It’s shiny, blinking and pointed straight at her.
And then, the last voice she ever expected to hear again shouts, “Oi!”
***
Subtlety is not, he supposes, his strong suit this regeneration. All eyes are now on him--human, alien, and those of the girl he’s been watching. Hers are wide, incredulous. Well, he does have that effect.
He tosses the biodamper up in the air and catches it again. “Lookin’ for me?”
Human voices rise in confused babble. And then, inevitably, one female voice breaks free of the rest, crying out, “Oh, my God, he has a gun!”
The Chronovore with the stunner belatedly realizes the society matron with the bleached hair is talking about him as the panic begins in earnest. Party guests scatter for the exits, practically trampling each other in their haste to get away from danger.
Except the girl. She shoves the bleached-hair matron towards an exit, and then she herself is heading for him.
So are his pursuers, after a moment or two of confusion over just whom they ought to be chasing. Luckily, he has it under control.
He hopes.
He aims his sonic screwdriver at the Chronovore with the stunner and short-circuits its disguise mechanism. Since they’re all linked--it’s easier to camouflage them all using a single uplink to their ship--breaking the circuit strips them all of their disguises. As an added bonus, it gives them all a good jolt. It won’t stop them, but it stuns them long enough for the Doctor to make his next move.
The girl in the rose dress has reached the stairs, shucking her shoes as she goes. He, in turn, reaches for her, grabbing her hand and saying, “Run!”
***
He’s here.
Her mind is racing at a million miles per hour, trying to come up with some explanation as to why the Doctor, why this Doctor, is here, but it keeps getting stuck on the fact that he’s real, he’s holding her hand, and he just said, “Run!”
She runs with him, having left her shoes on the staircase like Cinderella. The aliens might still be pursuing them, but somehow, that’s faded into a sort of background nuisance.
He pulls her into a room suddenly, motioning for her to be quiet. The sound of Mickey’s voice barking orders and the whine of energy guns reach her ears; Torchwood has arrived.
And then it all falls silent. The Doctor yanks a cobbled-together device out of his pocket and checks it.
“They’ve made a jump,” he mutters. “Army boys must’ve scared them away. Fantastic.”
At that word, she finally finds her voice. “Doctor.”
His attention immediately transfers itself to her. “Do we know each other?” he asks.
“I . . .” Her brain appears to have given up on trying to make sense of this. “I know you. Knew you. Will know you, maybe. I-I’m not sure.”
He scans her with the sonic screwdriver. “Well, I don’t know you, so one of us must be in the wrong when. Have you been traveling in time recently?”
“No, not since . . .” She trails off. “Doctor, how are you even here? I thought other universes were closed off now.”
He gives her a look that says he finds her more than a little strange. “They are. Good job I’m in the one I’ve always been in, then.”
She’s getting more confused by the moment and is afraid she might burst into tears or something equally embarrassing. “I don’t understand.”
Something the sonic is telling him causes him to suddenly freeze. “Neither do I, but I will. You’re coming with me.”
With that, he grabs her hand and pulls her toward a red telephone box sitting incongruously in the corner of the room. When it opens up to be bigger on the inside, she realizes the devastating truth: this is not her Doctor.
***
Her face is a fascinating study in emotion as she looks around his TARDIS. Wonder, yes, but also disappointment. He wonders where that comes from.
“I-I don’t think . . .” She trails off and swallows hard. “How long has your TARDIS been a phone box?”
That’s not a question he was expecting. “A long time. Since my first incarnation, at least.”
Her eyes grow suspiciously bright, and he hopes he won’t have to deal with an emotional breakdown. “I don’t think you’re my Doctor,” she says quietly.
“There’s only the one of me, I assure you.” He’s both deeply puzzled and intrigued. And a little annoyed.
“I don’t think that’s exactly true,” she says. “I traveled with another you--in another dimension.”
He looks at her hard for a minute or so before waving a hand at the captain’s seat. “Sit down.” She complies, her dress fluttering gently around her. “Let’s start from the beginning: I’m the Doctor. What’s your name?”
“Rose,” she says. “Rose Tyler.”
“Rose,” he repeats, and smiles. “Nice to meet you, Rose. Now, tell me how you first met this Doctor of yours.”
Over the next hour, under his questioning, she tells him how she met her Doctor, some of their adventures, how he regenerated and apparently became a weasel in pinstripes, and how they were separated. She keeps herself admirably under control, shedding a tear or two only at the last.
What she tells him is backed up by the readings he’s taken--that she has traveled in space and time, and she’s been through the Void. Nonetheless, it’s so completely contrary to what he’s always believed that he can’t quite convince himself it’s true.
Only one option, then.
“Rose Tyler,” he says, “I need to have a look inside that head of yours.”
***
Whatever she was expecting, that was not it. She lifts startled eyes to his and finds that he seems to be perfectly serious.
“O-okay,” she manages. Even if he’s not her Doctor, he’s still the Doctor, and she trusts him instinctively.
He touches cool, gentle fingers to her temples, and suddenly, she’s within her own head, letting him rifle through her memories. His observation is carefully clinical, detached, but she can’t stop her feelings for her Doctor from rising up within her. She can’t stop him from knowing what those feelings were/are.
And then she becomes aware of other feelings: his. How long it’s been since he touched anyone, physically or mentally. How very lonely he is and has been since the war. How much pain he’s been in. Instinctively, she reaches out to comfort him.
His response shocks both of them. Her touch is like rainwater, and his soul is parched ground. He soaks her in, seeking to bind her to him, desperate for contact, for union.
She slams back into her body as he suddenly releases her, stepping back, eyes wide with surprise, dismay and longing. She takes a half-step toward him but quickly stops herself; whatever happened caught him off-guard, and the surest way to make him bolt now is to crowd him.
Even if all she wants right now is to keep touching him.
It takes him a few moments to recover enough to speak. “I . . . suppose it’s all true, then,” he says, his voice sounding oddly strained. “Interesting. Perhaps Gallifrey’s own timeline shattered during the war. That would explain the existence of both of us.” The retreat into matters of time and space appears to ease his discomfort. She decides to go with it.
“What were those things?” she asks, a swift jerk of her head toward the doors indicating what went on outside them.
“Chronovores. They feed on artron energy, which makes the two of us a banquet.” He flips a few switches, and then he turns his oh-so-familiar grin on her. “Fancy helping me catch them?”
***
It’s mad to invite her along after what happened. The urge to flee her presence and what she’s sparked in him is overpowering--but the urge to keep her close is even stronger. It’s all he can do to keep himself from grabbing hold of her and sinking into the warmth and compassion she offers. Given her feelings for her other Doctor, and the obvious regard the other Doctor had for her, he thinks she’d be completely amenable to . . . sinking.
But that’s madness. She’ll be helpful to him in the chase for the Chronovores. Give him the edge he needs to end this game he’s been playing with them. That’s the only reason he wants her along. After this, he’ll send her back to her nice, high-society life.
That’s all.
Her smile lights up the control room. She’s like a sun, he thinks, all warmth and light.
“I’d love to help you catch them,” she says. She glances down at her dress. “Don’t suppose you have a wardrobe? I’d like to change into something a little more practical.”
He does indeed, and she hurries away after he gives her directions. A few minutes later, she reappears in blue jeans, a t-shirt and a red hoodie, sans jewelry. Though her hair and makeup still recall the gala she was attending, she looks more natural, as if she’s shed a disguise. It makes her even more disturbingly appealing.
He does his best to ignore her appeal as he chases down the subtle footprints of the Chronovores. Easier said than done, especially when she comes to stand next to him. She’s warm and smells good, like clean clothes, female sweat and just a hint of lavender. Strange, having someone else on the TARDIS. Good, though. Makes it feel a little more like a home . . .
Chronovores. Right. Then she’ll want to go back home, no doubt. He’s better off alone, anyway.
So why does it feel like it would be better with two?
***
Hunting down the Chronovores feels good. Like old times with her Doctors. The TARDIS lurches merrily toward their destination, where there’s a lot of running, even more fast-talking from the Doctor, a near-brush with disaster, a narrow escape from the local law enforcement, and, at last, triumph. The Doctor tricks the Chronovores into a time loop that should keep them busy for the better part of, oh, one thousand linear years.
When they finally get back to the TARDIS, Rose is exhausted. The Doctor gives her a funny look, like he can’t decide on what he wants to say, and finally suggests that perhaps she’d like to get some sleep in one of the bedrooms.
“That’d be great, yeah,” she says, relieved that he’s not taking her home.
Home. What’s home?
She still hasn’t settled that question in her mind when, face scrubbed and hair down, she tumbles into bed in a plain, utilitarian room.
***
It never ceases to amaze the Doctor how long humans can sleep. It’s going on nine hours after Rose went to bed, and she’s still not up. He doesn’t have all day--okay, technically, he does, but he’d prefer to be off and moving again, and it’s time to take her home. Past time, really; he doesn’t know why he invited her to sleep on the TARDIS.
Decided, he heads to the room she’s sleeping in, opens the door, pokes his head in, and gets quite a shock.
Rose is, indeed, still sleeping peacefully, but the room he knew to be plain and undecorated is now green. Soft, living green and white. The walls are green with a floral detail midway up. The linens are green and white with a subtle leaf pattern. Even the bed frame itself, exquisitely wrought like vines, is green.
In the middle of the bed, curled up in a little ball of light brown hair and pink pajamas, is Rose. She looks like she belongs in this room, as if it were tailored specifically for her. Which isn’t too far off the truth.
Annoyed, he sends a query off to the TARDIS as to why she did this when she knows Rose won’t be staying. In return, he gets a sharp rebuke. Better with her here, it seems to say. You shouldn’t be alone any longer.
Much as he wants to fight it, he can’t deny that her presence was not only beneficial in the hunt for the Chronovores, but pleasant as well. He likes having other beings around, and Rose slipped right in and fit perfectly. Likely a holdover from having traveled on another TARDIS; she came pre-broken-in.
That thought brings up another question: what if she doesn’t want to stay because he reminds her too much of the Doctor she lost? Or what if she does want to stay, but for the wrong reasons?
One way to find out, he feels the TARDIS prompting him. As usual, she’s right. He takes a deep breath.
“Rose.”
***
Rose wakes out of the deepest, most satisfying slumber she’s had in recent memory. She gets the impression someone called her name, but she’s so warm and relaxed that she doesn’t quite care. Taking her time, she opens her eyes.
Green, she thinks muzzily. The room’s gone green during the “night.” Her favorite shade of green, too, though she didn’t know it until this very moment. Well, it’s the TARDIS; of course she’d know . . .
The TARDIS. Memories rush back of the previous day, and she opens her eyes fully to find the Doctor--this Doctor, the Doctor who belongs in her new universe--watching her from the doorway.
“Morning,” she murmurs.
He smiles, the expression softening the severe lines of his face. “Good morning. You slept long enough.”
She stretches, feeling a few oddly-pleasant sore muscles from the chase with the Chronovores. “That I did. Worn out, I s’pose.” She yawns hugely and sits up. “There tea anywhere?”
“Kitchen,” says the Doctor with a jerk of his head. “Was just about to get some myself.”
Deciding that’s incentive enough to leave her extremely-comfortable bed, Rose disentangles herself from her blankets and hops down. On the floor is a pair of slippers to match the pajamas she chose from the wardrobe. She sticks her feet into them and pats the nearest wall. “Thanks, girl.” There’s a gentle flicker of acknowledgement inside her head, something she could never describe, but is very real nonetheless.
When her eyes find the Doctor again, his gaze is so penetrating she can almost feel it physically. She literally cannot move under it. Within a moment, though, she finds herself released from the spell, and the Doctor holds out a hand. “Tea?”
Almost shyly, she takes the offered hand. “Tea.”
***
He places a scone and some clotted cream and strawberry jam on the table in front of her as she pours tea for both of them. Both of them take their time getting comfortable before he finally speaks.
“You were helpful yesterday,” he says, hoping it’s a good opening line.
She smiles over her teacup. “Thanks. It was fun.”
“So, erm . . .” He trails off, feeling stupid. How does one ask such a thing? “It’s been a long time since someone traveled with me. I don’t suppose . . . unless you want to go home, of course. But you’d be welcome to stay.”
It’s out. He tries not to look like he desperately wants her to say “yes.” She sets down her cup and looks at him for a long moment.
“You’re not my Doctor,” she says thoughtfully. “But I was with him when he regenerated. Same man, but different. I had to get to know him all over again. Suppose it’ll be the same with you. The same, but not.”
He likes her for that. He likes it less when she insists on going home to fetch a few things and tell her family where she’ll be. Worse, she wants him to meet her parents and brother. He feels like--like a boyfriend. At his age! It’s undignified.
But meet them he does. Jackie looks disapproving but resigned, with an incongruous shade of relief thrown in for good measure. Pete looks guarded. Tony thinks the Doctor makes a fun new toy. Oddly, he doesn’t mind that so much. He lets the toddler yank him around by one hand, babbling about his toys in a mixture of English and complete gibberish even the TARDIS can’t translate. The Doctor senses that this little boy’s life will stray far into the realm of the improbable, and it pleases him.
Finally, Rose is ready to go. She gives kisses and hugs all around, and then she and the Doctor board the TARDIS.
“So,” he says, leaning on the console. “Where to, Rose Tyler?”
The smile she gives him leaves him wondering how he ever thought she wasn’t the most beautiful woman in the room.
***
In some ways, it’s just like old times.
They travel first to a planet called Pokkik, where there’s supposed to be a festival that involves the parade to end all parades. “Makes Mardi Gras look like a bank queue,” as the Doctor puts it.
Of course, then there’s political intrigue, which is, naturally, caused by alien infiltration. Rose and the Doctor end up weaving through floats that could fit a small town as they run from the delicious chaos they’ve caused, and the government is back in the right hands by morning. When they get back to the TARDIS, laughing and covered in glitter, it does seem so much like the adventures Rose shared with her Doctors that it gives her a pang in the chest.
But this isn’t her Doctor. There are subtle differences in his behavior that lead Rose to believe he’d been on his own for far longer before meeting her. Or perhaps that’s just what she’s reading into it, given what she sensed from his mind. Still, sometimes, when she catches him looking at her, there’s a depth of need in his eyes that takes her breath away.
She can’t deny that she needs him, too. For all her determination to live her life and be a new person in her new world, she hasn’t felt this alive since she fell. If he holds her hand tighter and hugs her harder than her first Doctor did, she can’t say she minds. Not at all.
On a distant planet, they sit against an enormous tree at the edge of a lush meadow, watching the sunset and waiting for what the Doctor has promised will be a show to remember. His arm is wrapped casually around her, and she leans against him.
“So, what’s going to happen?” she asks.
“That would be telling,” he says. “Humans. Always so impatient.”
She gives a little snort. “Says the Time Lord who can’t sit still long enough to drink a cup of tea and pouts at me when I need to sleep.”
“That’s not impatience. I simply have better things to do, and furthermore, I do not pout.”
“You pout.”
“Do not.”
“Fine, you sulk.”
“Hush. It’s starting.”
The last of the sunset is fading from the sky when Rose sees the first lights over the meadow. They flicker and flutter and seem to change color as they move. She’s about to ask what they are when several more emerge from the woods behind her.
“Butterflies?” she whispers, afraid to disturb the moment.
“Yes,” says the Doctor, his voice lowered as well. “Bioluminescent nocturnal butterflies coming to feed on the night-blooming poppies, and perhaps find a mate.”
They’re wondrous. The patterns on their wings glow in varied colors, and each of them seems to have a bright light on its body as well, like a firefly. Some are warm gold, others cool silver. As more and more join the gathering, the meadow turns into a carpet of light and color.
“It’s so gorgeous.” The word seems inadequate, but then, Rose can’t think of a word that would suit the spectacle. “Thank you for showing me this, Doctor.”
She looks at him to find his expression pensive, illuminated by the flickering glow of the butterflies and the light of the newly-risen moon. The light plays over his strong features--the high cheekbones, the aquiline nose, the deep eyes, the firm mouth--and Rose is reminded yet again of how beautiful she finds him, especially in these quieter moments.
“They’ll die soon,” he says. “After they come out of their cocoons, they have only days to find a mate, pass on their genetic legacy, and die. So brief, their beauty.”
She senses he’s speaking of more than the butterflies, and she answers carefully. “Doctor, I won’t promise you forever because I don’t have a forever to give.” He turns his head to meet her eyes, and she goes on. “All I can promise you in my now. It’s yours as long as it’s mine to give.”
He says nothing, but one hand lifts to her face, and his fingers gently trace it from brow to chin. Then they sit back again and watch the butterflies until dawn.
***
That night signals the beginning of a change in their relationship. He finds himself relaxing more fully around her, letting his guard down. In return, she’s easier around him. They talk about everything--her life with her other Doctor, his old companions, Gallifrey, the Army of Ghosts.
He avoids sleep as much as possible, but shortly after they view the butterflies, he finds he can’t put it off any longer. He goes to bed. The nightmares come. As always.
This time, though, a soft voice calls him out of the fire and the screams. When he finally fights his way to consciousness, there’s a warm, caring presence nearby, and he instinctively reaches for it. Two human arms surround him, and his face is pressed against something soft and sweet-smelling. A gentle voice murmurs reassurance in his ear.
Rose. She’s come to him, drawn either by his cries of distress or the TARDIS, and she’s holding him almost like a child. He realizes his fingers are digging into her side, probably bruising her. He forces them to relax and, much as he wants to stay just where he is, pushes back and away from her. She releases him, concern written across her features.
“Nightmare?” she guesses.
He nods, not trusting his voice. There’s a glass of water on the bedside table. The TARDIS must have provided that, as he doesn’t recall having put it there, and he drinks it down greedily.
“Are you all right?” Rose asks.
“Fine,” he says. In truth, he’s a little embarrassed at how he clung to her. “How did you know?”
“TARDIS told me. It happened with my first Doctor, too.” She keeps her voice light, casual, and he’s grateful. “God, your room’s freezing!”
At that, he realizes she’s only wearing a satin chemise. Her skin glows in the dim light, and he can see evidence of her body’s response to the chill through the sleek fabric--evidence he tries to ignore. His success at ignoring it is decidedly mixed.
As he tries to come up with a solution to her discomfort that won’t involve sending her away--he decidedly does not want to be alone right now, though he’d never admit it--Rose comes up with her own solution.
She slides into bed beside him.
“Much better.” She tucks the blankets around her. “Wanna talk about your nightmare?”
“No,” he says, adding after a moment, “Time War.”
“Ah.” That seems to satisfy her. She reaches out, finds one of his hands and holds it between hers. “Wanna talk about something else, or do you just want to go back to sleep?”
“I doubt I’ll sleep anymore. I got almost an hour; that will do me for another week.”
Her eyes are large, dark and entirely unconvinced as she faces him across the pillows. One of her hands detaches from his and touches his face, gently smoothing the lines there. “Don’t run yourself down, Doctor; you won’t do anyone any good that way.”
He can’t argue that with her, so he changes the subject. “Tell me about your family.”
She does, relating the long, meandering road that brought them all together. “The happiest I’ve been here in this world is with Tony. Mum wants to make everything better for me. Dad knows she can’t. Mickey understands better than either of them, but he--he still has feelings for me. I feel cruel when I lean on him and then can’t return his feelings. Tony doesn’t expect anything of me I can’t give.”
“He’ll live a life that’s far from the norm,” says the Doctor.
Rose’s eyes twinkle. “He never had a chance at a normal life. I just hope he’ll be happy.”
The look in her eyes says it all. “Like you haven’t been?”
“I wasn’t, no.” She yawns a little. “Not back on Earth. The pain faded, but I wasn’t happy.” Her smile is soft and a little dopey; she’s getting sleepier. “Am now, though.”
He smoothes her soft hair back from her face. “Get some sleep. We’ve another big day tomorrow.”
She closes her eyes, but murmurs, “What’ll we be doing?”
“I have no idea. Isn’t that fantastic?”
Her soft laugh is the last sound she makes before falling asleep.
He stays awake, watching her. A little frown forms between her eyes, as if she’s concentrating very hard on something in her sleep. The heat from her body permeates his bed, relaxing and soothing him until the remaining darkness from his nightmare is banished.
His sense of time kicks in, informing him of a path on the Probability Tree he hasn’t considered before, one that startles him. He’s not sure what to make of it, so he tucks it away and gets out of bed. Time to concentrate on other things. He’ll consider that path later. It’s a decision he needs to weigh carefully.
And then, a few weeks later, the matter is taken out of his hands. He hesitates just a moment too long as he and Rose are freeing prisoners at an illegal slave-mining operation, and as a result, he has to move a rather large boulder using nothing but physical force. By the time they get back to the TARDIS, his back is one solid mass of aching muscles, and the whole chain of events has one inexorable conclusion.
***
“Seriously, would you like a backrub?”
It’s the third time she’s asked some variation on the question. His insistence that his superior biology will heal itself without such primitive intervention gets less convincing every time he moves--and winces in pain.
He rolls his eyes. “Humans. Can’t--unf--conceive of anatomy that has no need of therapeutic--aah!” His attempt at hefting a volume of fifth-dimensional physics back onto the library shelf is swiftly and painfully aborted, and he sets it on a table as he plops down heavily onto the couch.
“Really convincing me of your biological superiority, you are.” She stands, setting aside the book she’s been perusing. “Back in a mo’.”
When she returns to the library, she’s bearing a bottle of lavender-scented bath oil. He eyes her suspiciously as she sits next to him on the couch.
“Strip off,” she commands, plucking at his jumper. His eyes narrow. Hers roll. “I promise I won’t hurt you or molest you. Now, strip off.”
She half-expects a sarcastic retort. What she doesn’t expect is the sudden uncertainty he radiates. He’s nervous, and she doesn’t know why. But he does finally remove his jumper, turning his back to her.
And suddenly, she’s the hesitant one. The naked, lean-muscled back in front of her is attached to the man she feels closest to in the world. In the months she’s spent on the TARDIS, she’s come to know him well enough to know how he’s like and unlike her Doctor, and she’s found that she likes this version of him just as much. They haven’t had the time she had with her old Doctor, but that’s all that’s lacking.
Perhaps because she’s more mature than she was the first time she met the Doctor, perhaps because of how quickly she settled into life on this TARDIS, he treats her as more of an equal than her Doctor did at this stage. And she knows herself and her own desires better than she did at nineteen.
What she desires is him.
“I could be mistaken, but this doesn’t feel like a backrub.” The Doctor’s sardonic tone interrupts her thoughts and brings her back to the present.
Well, she did start this. Pushing her hesitancy aside, she rubs a bit of the oil between her hands and then, before she can think better of it, begins to massage the tight muscles in his back. His skin is smooth and cool under her touch.
Calling to mind a few techniques Jack taught her back on the other TARDIS, she follows the hard lines of knotted muscles with long strokes, using the heels and the sides of her hands. She tries to keep her mind on the job at hand--easing the Doctor’s discomfort--but finds herself fighting her libido, which has reawakened with a vengeance. She ruthlessly suppressed it for years, but in his presence, it’s been steadily taking back ground.
When he gives a soft moan, it’s all she can do not to give in to her fantasies, start kissing at the back of his neck and follow the line of his vertebrae down, down, down while her hands wander around to his front . . .
What have I got myself into? she wonders.
Another soft moan for him that goes straight to her sex, and she thinks the need for him might just kill her.
***
Her soft, heated little hands are doing a remarkable job of relaxing the muscles in his back. They’re doing an even better job at tightening his trousers. Why did he agree to this?
Oh, that’s right--because he’s turning into a horny old bugger.
He moans again without meaning to. This time, her hands pause for a moment, and he hears the sharp intake of her breath. He worries he’s given himself away, and that she realizes just how aroused he’s getting and how awkward things will be now . . .
And then he realizes there’s been another scent growing, masked until now by the lavender oil. She, it appears, is aroused by him.
To hell with it, or wherever lost souls go these days.
In one swift movement, he’s turned around, captured one of her hands and used his other hand to trap her head as he captures her mouth with his. She squeaks in surprise but makes no attempt to escape. Indeed, after a moment, she opens her mouth under his and wraps one hand around the back of his neck.
She tastes sweet and warm as his tongue slides against hers, and she kisses the way she does everything--with all her heart. He hears himself moaning again, this time in harmony with her.
Finally, Rose pulls back to draw in a deep breath. Her eyes are wide and dark, her cheeks flushed, and she is beautiful beyond the telling of it.
Then she dives right back in, crawling into his lap to straddle his pelvis and grind hard against him, making him gasp and groan. He slides his hands under her top, pushing it up, and she lets go of him just long enough for him to remove it from her entirely. Her bra follows, and he dives down to take one nipple in his mouth. She’s making sweet little needful noises, and they’re going straight to his head and his groin.
Somehow, they manage to wrestle each other out of the rest of their clothing, and then he’s bearing her back, back to lie on the couch as he buries himself within her. Their eyes lock.
“Rose.” Her name is a plea and a prayer. Somehow, she understands what even he cannot vocalize, and she draws him down into a tender kiss. Then she thrusts her pelvis up against his, and all coherent thought is lost.
Still, some distant part of him wants to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. He, the last Lord of Time, is coupling with a human woman on a couch in his own TARDIS’s library. Why is this act so important? This strange, undignified, base, animal act that is suddenly the center of his whole existence.
But she’s so warm, and he’s been so cold for so long. Her touch eases his pain and tells him, in the most basic way possible, that he is not alone.
And when he tastes salt on her cheeks, he understands that it goes both ways, and a woman lost in the wrong universe has found consolation with him.
When at long last they’re both limp and sated, he carefully moves so that he’s spooned up behind her on the couch and draws an afghan over them. She takes his hand in hers and kisses it softly, then moves it to one soft, warm breast. He presses one last, gentle kiss to her lips, and then they sleep.
***
Rose wakes from a pleasant dream to an even more pleasant reality. The Doctor hasn’t moved at all since she fell asleep, right down to the hand cupping her left breast. From his deep, steady breaths, she concludes he’s still sleeping.
She’ll let him. She has no idea how he’ll react to what they did when he awakes, so she decides to savor being held by him while she can.
Time ticks slowly by. She thinks she was asleep at least an hour. Odd that he’d sleep so long, but then, she knows he hasn’t been sleeping much since she joined him on his ship, and she guesses he slept even less before. If this is the effect their lovemaking had on him, she’s glad to have given him this respite.
At long last, he gives a soft snort and twitches, and she feels him move his head. She stays motionless outwardly, but inwardly, she braces herself. If he’s decided this was all a mistake, she can take that--as long as she keeps his friendship.
“Are you awake?” he murmurs.
Having no better plan in mind, she answers, “Yeah.”
He makes no move to get up. He doesn’t even remove his hand from her breast.
“How’s your back?” she blurts when the silence stretches too long.
He chuckles, sending puffs of air through her hair. “I don’t think I have a tense muscle in my body right now.”
That makes her laugh as well. “Mine, either.”
She feels his chuckle at that more than she hears it. There’s a soft ghosting of breath at the join of her neck and shoulder, and she realizes he’s breathing in her scent. It’s enough to make her nipple pebble against the palm of his hand.
He stills, then sighs out a gentle breath as he rests his cheek against her hair. “Rose Tyler, since you’ve come into my life, I’ve found myself doing some strange things. Sex may just be the strangest of them all.”
She thinks about that a moment. “It is kind of bizarre, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he agrees. “Fantastic, though.” There’s a beat, and then a hint of tension in his voice as he says, “You . . . did think it was fantastic, didn’t you?”
His uncertainty is enough to make her giggle before she assures him, “Yes, it was fantastic. Wouldn’t mind doing it again.” It’s suddenly her turn to be uncertain. “Um, if you want, of course.”
“At the moment, I’m feeling very agreeable to whatever you want,” he says, sounding completely relaxed--and not a little smug.
She grins. “Good. D’you know what I want right now? What I really, really want?”
“If you break into a Spice Girls song, you’re off at the next planet.”
“God, no.” She shudders theatrically. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”
He gives her breast a little squeeze, sending a charge through her body. “As long as it’s not that, what is it you really, really want, Rose Tyler?”
She turns her head so she can see his face and says, “Chips.”
***
They eat chips while sitting on a pier in 1940s Bristol, watching the boats come in. Rose says they might be the best chips she’s ever eaten. The Doctor can’t disagree.
They don’t discuss what they are to each other, or what they’re becoming. There’s no easy word for it in English or Gallifreyan. Sometimes, they’ll simply enjoy the sights of other times or distant worlds. Other times, they’ll ride the razor’s edge of life and death as they save the universe, a world, or a single stranger. In the quiet moments in between, they’ll be lovers for comfort, for release of tension, for fun, for companionship.
He’ll never ask her if she’d go back to her old Doctor, given the chance. She’ll put the question from her mind entirely. Somehow, they’ll find happiness together.
Chips eaten, they rise to leave the pier. At that moment, a burning something streaks across the sky, moving too slowly to be a meteorite but not looking like anything from this planet in this time period. It lands with a boom somewhere beyond the city, and a lurid red light obscures the sunset.
They trade a grin. It looks like a job for them.